Sometimes it’s easy to get so caught up in the day-to-day tasks of running a business that you forget to take a step back and view it all with a critical eye. Do my customers see what I think they see? What do complete strangers think when they come across my website? Are my employees in line with my vision for the company? Do they even know what my vision is? Depending on the answers to these questions, you may have some work in store for you to improve your company’s image. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

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While editing a stack of documents a few months back, I ran across the phrase “top of mind.”

“Ugh, awkward,” I thought, and changed it. But then it popped up again a few docs later from a different writer, and then again while researching. Amid my growing suspicions, I managed to Google it with slightly shaky hands.

To my horror, I found that “top of mind” was a thing — an actual accepted phrase used in business every day by who knows how many people, and this despite its ungainly cadence and oh-so-wrongness. And top of mind is far from the only culprit. We also have nuggets like “vertical market” and leverage used as a verb in the wrong way. Also, nuggets.

Companies now have robust offerings instead of choices and they leverage solutions instead of selling stuff. And business jargon itself is

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If you’re like me, a new year often means looking back at the previous year and comparing it to what’s about to come. For some, this can be a downright depressing process, with most of the focus on past failures. For others, however, it’s full of excitement, with much to look forward to in the coming year. To which camp do you belong?

I won’t patronize you by extolling the virtues of positive thinking and seeing mistakes and failures as simply blueprints for what success is meant to look like. Rather, I want to point out that regardless of your natural attitudinal tendencies, planning and preparation play a big role in what you reap down the line. I’m a strong believer in that, and I’ve found that if we have a blockbuster of a month, all I have to do is

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